August 17, 2017

California in many ways is a victim of its own success in preparing ever larger numbers of students for college.

That is one way to look at the recent flap over the revocation of admission offers to about 500 students at UC Irvine who had either not sustained their academic performance during their last semester in high school or had not submitted their final high school transcripts as required by university rules.

The withdrawal of the offers was widely portrayed as the actions of an unfeeling bureaucracy at best, or at worst, of incompetence by the university’s administration. The university backed off and admitted many of the students who were found not to be at fault in submitting their transcripts.

Receiving much less attention was this fall’s admissions overload at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, one of the most competitive campus in the California State University system, when about 700 more students than anticipated accepted offers of admission. Instead of rescinding their admission offers, Cal Poly scrambled to find ways to admit all the students.

Both incidents highlight the success of California’s public schools to prepare more students for college and careers — especially those students who have historically not been on a college track — and the challenges the state’s public universities are facing in serving them all.

Over the past 10 years there has been a massive increase in the numbers and percentages of students meeting A-G course requirements needed for admission to the University of California and California State University systems — from 126,019 in 2005-06 to 194,698 in 2015-16.

Even more notable is that the number of low-income students who have completed the A-G requirements has tripled over the past decade.

Over the last five years, the number of high school graduates has increased by 5 percent, but the number of A-G eligible applicants has increased by 28 percent. “As a fraction of all those who are graduating from college, a larger percentage than ever are ready for college,” said PPIC research fellow Jacob Jackson.

According to California’s Master Plan for Higher Education, the top 12.5 percent of the high school graduating class are eligible for admission to a UC campus, and the top 33.3percent to CSU. But a just released study by the consulting firm RTI International found that 13.9 percent of the 430,000 high school graduates in 2015 using current admissions standards were eligible to enter UC and 41 percent were eligible to do so at CSU.

“The change in eligibility rates translates into a massive increase in the number of students who qualify for public postsecondary education in the state,” the report found.” Over a mere eight years, the number of eligible students at UC and CSU grew by more than 30 percent at UC and 50 percent at CSU, the RTI researchers estimated.

Adding to the pressures on colleges is the steadily increasing numbers of community college students who have met the requirements to transfer to CSU and UC. From 2000-01 to 2014-15, the number of students who completed the units they need to transfer increased by two-thirds, according to a report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office earlier this year.

These increases are a combination of not only population growth, but of students doing better in school. Compounding the numbers is that California has a higher college attendance rate than all but 10 states, and is 3 percentage points higher than the national average of 43 percent, according to the LAO.

Not surprisingly, along with rising numbers of eligible students, total undergraduate enrollments have soared. This fall, 210,000 undergraduates enrolled at nine UC campuses (UCSF, the 10th campus in the UC system, doesn’t have an undergraduate program.) That is an increase of 50 percent since 2000.

A sizable portion of the enrollment growth comes from big increases in out-of-state and foreign student enrollments, in response to the deep budget cuts inflicted by the state for the past several decades, and which accelerated during the budget crisis brought on by the Great Recession. But California resident enrollments have also jumped significantly, from 140,000 in 2000 to 175,000 this year.

“Enrollment growth at UC and CSU has not kept up with demand,” a recent PPIC report noted. PPIC researchers pointed out that growing numbers of students are leaving the state altogether to attend college. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of students leaving the state each year in search of other colleges grew by 40 percent, to about 30,000 per year, a number equivalent to the entire entering UC freshman class.

The problem of capacity has been compounded by rising housing costs in many parts of the state, so that off-campus housing is becoming more expensive than living in dorms on campus. And many campuses don’t have the dorm space to handle the demand.

The 23-campus California State University system has been similarly affected. Freshman enrollments have increased from 55,000 in 2011 to just under 62,000 last fall. Total California resident enrollments have risen from 291,000 in 2000 to 402,000 during the current academic year.

So what needs to happen to meet the demand? Building new campuses is not necessarily the solution. It can take years, even decades, to build a new campus, from the planning stage to completion.

Erecting a new campus is also hugely expensive, and it is not clear where the funds would come from to build one or more campuses.

What’s more, the January LAO report concluded that additional campuses for either system is “not warranted at this time.”

LAO analysts said that both UC and CSU have not exercised all their options to increase enrollments. For example, under state law UC and CSU are supposed to offer summer classes enrolling 40 percent and 25 percent of their fall enrollment respectively. But currently UC is only enrolling the equivalent of 20 percent of fall enrollment, and CSU 6 percent.

Other measures listed by the LAO to cope with enrollment pressures include reducing non-California resident enrollments, constructing buildings already listed on strategic plans at some campuses, leasing off-campus space to be able to offer more classes, implementing “instructional efficiencies” such as expanding online coursework, and increasing the hours instruction is offered, including on weekends.

In theory at least, if all these measures were implemented, it is possible that new campuses would not be needed. But to implement them, both UC and CSU would almost certainly need a significant increase in state funding to build more buildings and to staff classes conducted in them. They would also need to change practices deeply rooted in the culture of the university, such as Saturday classes. Ceasing to admit out-of-state or foreign students who pay significantly more tuition than California residents would have an immediate impact on the budgets of several UC campuses in particular.

These measures would also take time to implement.

What is clear is that there are no easy or quick fixes to meeting the need to educate California’s growing youthful population — and the rising percentage of students who are leaving high school eligible to attend UC or CSU.

In the future, administrators at individual UC and CSU campuses may be more successful in accurately anticipating what percentage of incoming freshman they should offer admission to avoid the debacles experienced at UC Irvine and Cal Poly.

But doing so shouldn’t obscure the welcome reality that efforts to better prepare students to attend college are paying off. Instead of backing off those efforts, it would be far more desirable to admit more California students, and for the state to underwrite the additional costs to allow its famed public universities to do so.

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Louis Freedberg writes about education reforms in California and nationally, and is the executive director of EdSource

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David2 years ago2 years ago

This article illustrates what a joke UC and CSU have become. When my son was applying to colleges in the Fall of 2015 we applied to 3 UCs and 2 CSUs but we also did something different from what the high school guidance counselors expected: We applied to a number of out-of-state public schools, and it became an eye-opening experience. The three UCs he applied to and was accepted by, Davis, Irvine and … Read More

This article illustrates what a joke UC and CSU have become. When my son was applying to colleges in the Fall of 2015 we applied to 3 UCs and 2 CSUs but we also did something different from what the high school guidance counselors expected: We applied to a number of out-of-state public schools, and it became an eye-opening experience. The three UCs he applied to and was accepted by, Davis, Irvine and Riverside, waited until March 2016 to tell us their admissions decision and in their financial aid award letter that he would receive $0 merit aid and no need-based aid.

This despite being ranked in the top 3% of his class with a 3.8 unweighted/ 4.3 weighted cum GPA based on a very challenging curriculum of STEM-based AP coursework. Plus being middle-class almost certainly ensured that the only “aid” received off the FAFSA was the right to take out student loans, which is not really any aid at all since it must be repaid. The cost for these schools for tuition/fees/room/board was $32,000 (Riverside), $30,000 (Davis) and $27,000 (Irvine). Added to this picture is the overcrowded nature of these UCs where, depending on your major, your classes may be “impacted” such that you won’t be able to graduate on time.

Contrast this with the response we received from numerous out-of-state public schools where beginning in October 2015 they began providing admissions and merit aid award decisions that were so helpful in helping plan our son’s future enrollment decision months before the May 1st national deadline and just before his high school graduation in June 2016. All of them provided significant amounts of merit aid and were from schools with strong academic programs and top-notch Tier 1 research institutions, including University of Arizona, Arizona State, Washington State, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, University of Kansas aka KU, Iowa State and the University of Iowa. These academically-solid schools also offered the chance for our son to experience another culture for 4 years out of his life rather than just the same-old in California.

The much lower price tags for schools that were of equal or better quality was the real shocker: $20,000 Iowa State, $14,500 Arizona State, $30,000 University of Arizona, $22,000 University of Kansas, $28,000 University of Iowa, $22,000 University of Nebraska at Lincoln and $23,000 Washington State.

Add in the factors of notable school spirit and being able to graduate in 4 years at each of these schools due to a lack of being impacted made the decision to go out of state a no-brainer. My son ended up choosing Arizona State from his list of excellent choices and is looking to graduate in 4 years with $0 debt with our support (and with us as parents not having to take out any PLUS loans) and has been provided internship and research opportunities he would never have had as an underclassman at UC where he would have been just a number on an over-crowded campus.

The lasting impression I have of this recent experience with the UCs is that they are living off a borrowed reputation from years past but have succumbed to an unresponsive and costly bureaucratic structure that is neither student/family friendly nor do they really have the quality that they used to have given the constant increases, impacted classes and over-crowded campuses that convey the impression that the attending student is part of a numbers game mill. Moreover UC’s dysfunctional customer demographic appears focused almost exclusively on 4 categories of student: the wealthy, international students (primarily from Asia), certain poor students who qualify for large amounts of need-based aid and those undocumented who entered the US at 16 or younger that are part of the California “Dream Act” program that also provides need-based aid. Hardly a true picture of the California voter/ taxpayer demographic, and it paints a very unappealing picture for middle-class families who are considering college options for their sons and daughters.

As a result of this experience with our son, for our daughter who will be graduating from high school in 2018, we have decided not to apply to any UCs or CSUs. Instead, beginning in July 2017 and concluding in October 2017, she has applied to over 20 out of state public schools and has already been accepted by 14 and several have already provided merit aid offers. We will also apparently qualify for some level of need-based aid this time around due to having two of them in college at the same time which will be nice. Unfortunately, neither of these California natives will have the opportunity to attend higher education in the increasingly not-so-Golden State.

B C5 months ago5 months ago

While this is late reply, I just have to congratulate you on a wise decision. I, unfortunately, attend UCSD and I am transferring out ASAP. At every level, this school failed to mention there is a serious problem with over enrollment. VPN does not work for more than 5 mins, tutor wait times are hours (I have waited over 5), WiFi is hit or miss, and some discussions have been led by tutors instead … Read More

While this is late reply, I just have to congratulate you on a wise decision. I, unfortunately, attend UCSD and I am transferring out ASAP. At every level, this school failed to mention there is a serious problem with over enrollment. VPN does not work for more than 5 mins, tutor wait times are hours (I have waited over 5), WiFi is hit or miss, and some discussions have been led by tutors instead of TAs. Overall, California is a lost cause, not just the schools.

el2 years ago2 years ago

I think it's funny how even really great news in education manages to get cast as gloom and doom. These are exactly the results we want, a problem we have been working very hard to have. I hope we can give the K-12 system some serious credit for stepping up and I hope they will be making this even more of a problem going forward. Same for the community colleges.
Thanks for the article, and thanks … Read More

I think it’s funny how even really great news in education manages to get cast as gloom and doom. These are exactly the results we want, a problem we have been working very hard to have. I hope we can give the K-12 system some serious credit for stepping up and I hope they will be making this even more of a problem going forward. Same for the community colleges.

Thanks for the article, and thanks to our teachers and students and schools for stepping up their game.

Zeev Wurman2 years ago2 years ago

Well, I think it is smart not to build more campuses – student-readiness and enrollment is already starting to trend down.
I assume that UC and CSU readiness are largely correlated. Given that math readiness level of CSU freshmen already has started to fall down after a decade and a half of increases (see https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibpmqsfkyvp0qi9/CSU%20Remediation.pdf?dl=0) and given that the CSU enrollment also started to slide (61,800 in fall 2016 versus a peak of 64,400 in 2015).
It … Read More

Well, I think it is smart not to build more campuses – student-readiness and enrollment is already starting to trend down.

I assume that UC and CSU readiness are largely correlated. Given that math readiness level of CSU freshmen already has started to fall down after a decade and a half of increases (see https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibpmqsfkyvp0qi9/CSU%20Remediation.pdf?dl=0) and given that the CSU enrollment also started to slide (61,800 in fall 2016 versus a peak of 64,400 in 2015).

It seems to me that Common Core’s mediocrity already starts to show up in our high school grads. What is described here is the tail end of a 15 years of our excellent academic standards of 1998, that were phased out in 2014-15 and replaced by Common Core. In my opinion, we should prepare ourselves for a significant slide in college preparedness and college enrollment in the coming years. Unfortunate, but predictable.

Don2 years ago2 years ago

While Common Core is reducing rigor, the College Board has also lowered the bar on the SAT with David Coleman at the helm. As Ze'ev astutely points out, the good times of real incremental academic progress are coming to an end and the era of phony college readiness is beginning with the graduation of students who only took a Common Core-based curriculum in high school. As long as college completion rates are low institutions of … Read More

While Common Core is reducing rigor, the College Board has also lowered the bar on the SAT with David Coleman at the helm. As Ze’ev astutely points out, the good times of real incremental academic progress are coming to an end and the era of phony college readiness is beginning with the graduation of students who only took a Common Core-based curriculum in high school. As long as college completion rates are low institutions of higher education should find ways to expand at the freshman and sophomore levels while contracting the upper classes and avoid building new campuses. Night classes and summer sessions should help to limit the cost associated with infrastructure build outs and the tuition increases they entail. The resources of college campuses need to be employed beyond banker’s hours so the influx of unprepared students does not bankrupt out public universities. 2 to 3 years from now we will see what happens to college enrollment at the junior and senior levels.

Jose Preciado2 years ago2 years ago

The Legislative Analyst's Office suggests that no campuses are warranted based on the existing capacity at less impacted campuses or under enrolled campuses. But these campuses require, urban and coastal students to move away from their communities and live on campus when they could be commuting from the parental home. This adds between $10,000 and $15,OOO to each student's annual costs. This would turn a CSU education that can cost families $7,000 a year or … Read More

The Legislative Analyst’s Office suggests that no campuses are warranted based on the existing capacity at less impacted campuses or under enrolled campuses. But these campuses require, urban and coastal students to move away from their communities and live on campus when they could be commuting from the parental home. This adds between $10,000 and $15,OOO to each student’s annual costs. This would turn a CSU education that can cost families $7,000 a year or $42,000 in six-years into an education costing $22,000 a year or $132,000.

We need more campuses in urban centers so that students can commute to school. These universities are also a vibrant part of the economy. They can stimulate economic growth when located in the communities that have complimentary industries. Think of San Jose State in Silicon Valley or CSU San Marcos in Carlsbad/Vista/Escondido/San Marcos/Oceanside region of San Diego County.